TIANJIN - Visitors to China will soon be able to pay for just about anything in the country by using its ubiquitous superapp WeChat, making their stay in one of the world’s most cashless societies much easier than before.
By linking their international Visa credit or debit card to their WeChat account, tourists can access tens of millions of online and offline merchants, as well as services including ride-hailing, delivery and transportation networks from the middle or end of July.
China is the world’s biggest mobile payment market, with the usage rate at 86 per cent in 2021, according to data from consulting firm PwC. Besides WeChat Pay, known as Weixin Pay in China, the other dominant player is AliPay, which is developed by tech giant Alibaba.
Speaking at a panel discussion on frictionless payment at the World Economic Forum “Summer Davos” in Tianjin on Wednesday, Mr Royal Chen, vice-president of Tencent Financial Technology, said WeChat Pay would soon be made available to those coming to China.
“It will be the same as how local Chinese would pay for things. There’s almost no difference in experience,” he said.
His company is the fintech arm of social media and gaming giant Tencent, which owns WeChat.
WeChat first extended its mobile payment service to foreigners in 2019 under a pilot initiative, but only covering a handful of merchants. Then, the Covid-19 pandemic hit in 2020.
After three years of shutting its borders to the world, China is gearing up for international visitors following its reopening in January. It will host the Asian Games in the city of Hangzhou from September to October, and the Belt and Road Forum later in 2023.
WeChat’s new service for foreigners is timed to cater to the large number of visitors China is expecting as international tourism resumes, said Mr Chen.
AliPay also allows international travellers to bind their credit cards to its payment system to be used in China.
Currently, users, including foreigners, have to link their Chinese bank cards to WeChat to use its mobile payment services. The lack of access to such services has been a major bugbear for travellers to China without Chinese bank accounts. This is because cash transactions are the exception rather than the norm, and foreign credit cards are not widely accepted in the country.
Both WeChat and AliPay have also worked with merchants in Singapore to facilitate cashless payment by Chinese tourists to the island.
